Environmentalists say they have reached agreement on key legislation to reduce the amount of plastic Californians use once and throw them in the trash — a compromise that could keep Californians at bay. Plastic Waste Control Initiative outside the November poll.
The deal signals a major breakthrough after bills targeting pollution from single-use plastics have died over and over at the state capitol in recent years due to fierce opposition from industry groups.
Under the agreement, environmental groups will likely withdraw their ballot procedure if the legislature approves the bill before the June 30 deadline to remove the initiatives from the fall ballot. The deal is the culmination of months of negotiations between environmentalists, lawmakers and some business groups.
Bill SB54 would require plastic manufacturers to ensure that plastic and food packaging materials — such as cups, straws and eating containers — are recyclable or reusable. Manufacturers will also be required to significantly reduce the amount of plastic they produce in the first place.
Supporters said the bill, if approved, would be a historic step to tackle the plastic pollution crisis wreaking havoc on ocean habitats and the environment more broadly. The bill for plastic reduction will be the most comprehensive in the country.
“It will have global reverberations and influence the global fight against plastic pollution,” said Senator Ben Allen, a Democrat from Santa Monica who holds SB54.
SB54, according to the text of the law obtained by The Chronicle, requires by 2032 manufacturers that distribute plastic packaging and food ware to ensure that their products can be recycled, composted or reused. Companies will also be required to ensure that 65% of those disposable or compostable plastics have been recycled by the same year.
Plastic use has skyrocketed in recent decades: More than 14 million tons of plastic flow into the ocean each year, according to a report by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. This is because Only about 9% of plastic Absolutely all over the world are recycled, and the materials do not biodegrade in nature.
Another key condition of the action would require manufacturers to reduce 25% of the amount of single-use plastic packaging and food utensils they distribute in the country by 2032, Anya Brandon, US plastics policy analyst at Ocean Conservancy, an environmental group that supports the bill, said.
In other words, companies have to replace a quarter of all those plastic items with disposable materials that can be recycled, such as paper or glass, or reusable and refillable containers.
Brandon estimated that this would prevent nearly 23 million tons of single-use plastics from being distributed or sold in California over the next decade — nearly 26 times the weight of the Golden Gate Bridge.
“Without a doubt, this bill, if passed, would be the most powerful plastic legislation we’ve seen here in the United States,” Brandon said. “This is really precedent-setting legislation.”
But the bill would be different from the polling scale in some important ways. The ballot initiative required that plastic packaging and food utensils be recycled or composted by 2030, two years before the bill.
In addition, the ballot measure will prevent food vendors, including restaurants and grocery stores, from using Styrofoam eating containers. The bill does not ban Styrofoam, but proponents said it includes a “virtual ban” because it would require 20% of Styrofoam to be recycled by 2025, and the material cannot be recycled in most places.
There is also a potential bump in the legislative agreement: Three residents whose names were used to formally put the initiative on the ballot said they They want to promote the bill, Including by adding an outright ban on Styrofoam food containers, as first reported by Politico.
Compromise proponents are negotiating with those three backers of the initiative, including Coast Commissioners Linda Escalante and Karel Hart and former Recology CEO Michael Sangiacomo, over the language of the bill.
California and other states have long struggled with the plastic pollution crisis. In recent years, state lawmakers have repeatedly proposed bills to reduce the amount of plastic containers and packaging used here, but these measures have often died out despite a vast Democratic majority in the state legislature.
In April, state attorney general Rob Ponta Investigation started In the oil and chemical companies over what he described as misleading consumers in the industry about the extent to which their products can be recycled.
Dustin Gardiner (he/she) is a San Francisco Chronicle writer. Email: dustin.gardiner@sfchronicle.com Twitter: Tweet embed